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You have killed children, the youth of the wasteland. This is considered to be a really bad thing. You evil, evil person.Fallout and Fallout 2 description

Childkiller is a Reputation title in Fallout and Fallout 2.

Obtaining[]

The Childkiller reputation is conferred upon the player after killing children. Although the reputation will display in the character sheet immediately, it will remain inactive until the player kills at least three children in Fallout or two children in Fallout 2.

The games only track combat kills made by the player. As such, companions can kill children with impunity, even if the player starts combat with e.g. a plant spike. Assassinations made with super stimpaks and planted explosives also do not increment the Childkiller counter.

Each kill increments the Childkiller count by one. In Fallout 2, there are a few kids who increase the child-kill count twice because of a script redundancy (and thus instantly makes the Chosen One a "real" Childkiller). These are Jonny in Modoc, the Slag kids and Curtis in Vault City.

Effects[]

Notes[]

Although Myron is a teenager,[1] he is not counted as a child and you will not lose Karma or gain the Childkiller reputation for killing him.

Behind the scenes[]

  • As originally implemented, the Childkiller reputation was not tracked by the number of children critter types killed, but separate variables tracking the children killed in each of the major inhabited areas (Shady Sands, The Hub, and Adytum). This idea was scrapped.[2]
  • Because of the possibility to kill children, Fallout was denied release in Europe initially, but after removing all children from the game, it was allowed release. Fallout 2 also has no children in European versions, and lampshades this fact through fourth-wall-breaking dialogue in Vault City while talking to Phyllis.[3]
  • Tim Cain commented on the controversy during a developer presentation in 2012.
This led to the child killing controversy. We said look, we're going to have kids in the game; you shoot them, it's a huge penalty to karma, you're really disliked, there are places that won't sell to you, people will shoot you on sight, and we thought people can decide what they want to do. [...] This of course contributed to our M-rating, however, Europe said "no". They wouldn't even sell the game if there were children in the game. We didn't have time to rewrite all the quests, we just deleted kids off the disc.Fallout Classic Revisited by Tim Cain (Reference at 40:11)
Child Killer

The unused icon for the reputation.

  • A new Vault Boy image for the Childkiller title was initially created for Fallout 2 but was never used.
This image was unused and the only Vault Boy image to ever be cut from Fallout 2. (I'm sure you can figure out why) I remember when I got the request to do a perk illustration for "Child Killer" that there would be no way to keep in from being offensive. I mean really! How do you make an illustration of "child killer" and keep it from being offensive? Anyway for some reason, I thought this was the least offensive way to do it. I have no idea what I was thinking. Even the designer who requested it realized it was a bad idea, so we fixed it. Looking back on it now, I can't believe I drew this.Brian Menze on The Vault

References[]

  1. Myron's character description: "{200}{}{You see a pasty-faced teenager. His hair is greasy, and he smells faintly of formaldehyde.}"
    (NhMyron.msg)
  2. Vault13.gam: "CHILD_KILLER_SHADY  :=0; // (0) // Has the player killed children in Shady Sands?
    CHILD_KILLER_HUB  :=0; // (1) // Has the player killed children in Hub
    (...)
    CHILD_KILLER_ADYTUM  :=0; // (3) // Has player killed children in Adytum"
  3. Phyllis: "{216}{}{Well... yes. Actually, there aren't. Yet. I don't know if anyone told you yet, Vault City is a planned community. We're not due for another pregnancy cycle until a few years from now.}"
    The Chosen One: "{290}{}{Oh well, I thought there weren't any children because this might be the European version of Fallout 2. Goodbye.}"
    (Vcnancy.msg)
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